Title:  The Prized Girl
Author:  Amy K. Green
Genre:  Thriller
Rating:  4 out of 5

Virginia lives on sarcasm and depression, with a side helping of torture in the form of weekly dinners with her distant father, overly controlling and needy stepmother, and her annoying younger half-sister, Jenny.

But when pageant queen Jenny is found murdered, Virginia decides the cut-and-dried answer of who killed her—the cops say it’s the most obvious suspect, an obsessive fan—might not be the truth, and decides to investigate herself. So Virginia starts asking questions. And the answers she finds lead her both back to her own path and down a path that is far more twisted than she imagined.

I finished reading this just to find out who killed Jenny. But…I didn’t like any of these characters. Virginia has issues-with-a-capital-I, and these issues get in the way of life for her, much less seeing the truth of any situation involving a figure from her past. Her Dad is a jerk, and his secret doesn’t make his treatment of his family okay. Her stepmother was horrible. Even the scenes from Jenny’s viewpoint didn’t make me like her. Did I figure out who the killer was? No. Did I have any liking for any of these characters, also no. The writing was solid, but the characters made me dislike the whole story.

Amy K. Green lives in California. The Prized Girl is her debut novel.

(Galley courtesy of Penguin/Dutton in exchange for an honest review.)

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